


Fixture

by jargonelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:43:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1644224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jargonelle/pseuds/jargonelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean tries to fix a few things. Lisa finds it hot, but that's not what's important. Dean/Lisa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fixture

**Author's Note:**

> Set after season 5, with spoilers for season 6.

Before Ben, Lisa had been teaching beginner classes at community centers and sleeping with anyone who caught her eye. Strong men, mainly, who could hold her up as she twisted herself around them. Men without plans for the future, because who the fuck had time for that. Dean had been one of the last.

After Ben, Lisa had specialized. One-on-one sessions with women desperate to get back into shape and who didn’t care how much of their husband’s money it took to do it. Personal sessions with busy women who had only a couple of hours free time a day and who chose to spend it on her instead of with their children. Lisa hoarded her every spare moment and shared them with Ben. The men she used to know didn’t fit the image she presented to her clients, and the men she tended to meet had priorities that didn’t match up with her own.

After Sam, Dean had drunk, and slept, and had drunk some more. He’d stay up all night on his laptop, feverishly searching for a peace he couldn’t find. He’d take off without saying anything and come back a few days later, exhausted and fragile. One day, she’d picked Ben up from school and come home to find Dean sat in the kitchen, blood on his hands, with a smashed up table and a kicked in door. She had sent Ben up to his room and steeled herself. She couldn’t have this Dean in her home.

“I can fix this,” he had said, “at least let me fix this.” His voice trembled on the last word, but his eyes were clear for the first time in weeks, a man instead of a ghost.

“All right.”

Ben slept in her room curled up in a sleeping bag that night. Dean slept in the garage.

~~

Dean had the radio on.

He was lying on his back and fiddling with something under the sink; Lisa really hoped he knew what he was doing. There was a half-empty coffee cup in the middle of the floor, along with the scattered parts of an electric drill, and both Dean’s shirt and his T-shirt had risen up to show his stomach. He’d also rolled up his sleeves and was really straining to work with the wrench over his head.

Lisa felt a familiar throb, but ignored it. This was about what was good for Dean. 

“The water will be back on in a minute,” he said.

She pretended to sort through her bag while she watched him work. “So you’re a plumber now?”

He grunted and slid out from his refuge. “I do what needs doing."

He was trying to fix things though that didn’t need fixing. She didn’t know why he’d even bothered trying with the table when it was clear they'd need a new one.

"Let's go out for dinner tonight," she said. "We can let Ben pick where, so it'll be sure to be somewhere that does burgers."

Dean stood up and shook his head. "You and Ben should do something together."

"We will. With you. We're celebrating." He smelled of alcohol like usual, but he was there, in the moment for once, instead of trapped in the past. 

~~

Dean decided he needed to make a shed. 

They had a perfectly good garage with plenty of space, even after he'd stored his car in there, but he wanted to build something and Lisa couldn't think of a better form of therapy that Dean would actually go for. He'd stopped giving off the 'Stay the fuck away,' vibes that had been keeping the neighbors at bay, so Sid introduced himself, and they bonded over beer and power tools. From then it wasn't too long before Dean was being offered day work down on the site and they were all being invited out together. 

Lisa stopped waking up in the morning afraid that she'd come down to find Dean dead on the couch and started looking forward to breakfast with her family.

~~

She watched Ben watch Dean.

She didn't know who Ben's father was, not for sure. She didn't need to know. Ben was her son and no one else's.

It was easier, in some ways though, with Dean around. It made her doubt her choices, for the first time in ten years, and she resented him, just a little for that.

~~

Dean's jeans had holes in the knees, his boots were solid, there were oil stains on his T-shirt and a dirty rag stuffed in his back pocket. He was sweaty and solid and hot.

When he came into the kitchen, Lisa handed him a glass of water, and he drank half of it in a single gulp.

"You want to?" she asked and he knew her well enough to know what she meant.

Dean cocked his head, "What, here?"

That wasn't an answer. "Ben's at Stephen's. We can go upstairs if you want."

Dean was finally sleeping through the night, he deserved better than the couch. They'd had something, that weekend all those years ago, and they had a partnership now, a friendship. Lisa was confident that a relationship could work, that it could be a good thing for both of them. It had been a long time since she'd had anything so stable.

He scratched at the back of his head. "I should shower."

"This isn't..."

_... a spur of the moment thing, a big deal, an obligation..._

"...just my decision."

She realized she had the power: her house, her son, her neighbors, her friends. She tried to show Dean how much she cared for him through her smile. Dean took another drink. 

"I want you to say 'Yes,' though, Dean."

He choked and spluttered water.

Oh shit, she'd triggered something, and embarrassed him.

He recovered quickly, too quickly maybe. "I'm gonna shower first. Let me know if you change your mind."

~~

He got fully dressed again before coming into her bedroom, but he'd changed the shirt for a plain green one. 

Lisa didn't like to talk about sex, she liked to have it. "Let's just see where this goes, shall we?" She was sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, having taken off her shoes and pantyhose.

Dean nodded, grateful, and knelt in front of her. He brought his right hand up to her cheek and kissed her, warm and wet.

While he was still as eager to follow her lead, he wasn't as responsive, nor as playful, as she remembered. He was still drinking a lot and she had to work a little harder to get him fully interested. Unlike herself, her stomach stretched and torn, he was mostly free of scars, but she knew that was just superficial. She herself was stronger than she had been, sure, but heavier, not as willing to tie herself in knots.

They lay together afterward, the sun streaming in from the window. Dean had a hand in her hair and was fiddling with it gently.

"Stay here tonight," she said.

\--

Dean started cooking more.

"You don't mind?" he asked one morning, while Ben was greedily devouring his plate of breakfast.

"Not even in the slightest."

Ben agreed a bit too enthusiastically, so she swatted him lightly on the shoulder.

Dean didn't waste food. If it couldn't be stored he'd get someone to eat it, whether they wanted it then or not. He often seemed to forget they had a freezer.

When a bulb blew in the hallway, Dean volunteered to change it. When the lawn needed mowing, Dean stepped in to do it even though it was supposed to be one of Ben's chores. Lisa would have said something, except Dean seemed to be enjoying himself.

Most of the time.

Sometimes he'd be hit with a rush of guilt and grief so strong it would shatter him. 

He would drink nonstop and carry on his frantic, panicky research. He slept downstairs in his clothes and tried to pick a fight with anyone outside of herself and Ben who dared to speak to him. He punished himself for every scrap of joy he'd felt since Sam sacrificed himself and there was nothing Lisa could do but try to be there when he inevitably collapsed.

~~

"You ever play golf?" Lisa was sat in front of her mirror, brushing her hair, and she could see Dean's automatic disgusted response in its reflection.

"I don't think they send membership cards out to motels."

Dean, to no one's surprise, turned out to be good at it though. The few times he swung and missed the ball completely, he would psych himself back up by reminding himself that if bankers could play the stupid game, so could he. He had the power to drive, but he was better at putting. Dean could sink the ball into the hole from several meters half the time, and just shrugged good-naturedly when Sid swore and asked him how he did it.

He was restless, trapped in the club house though, kept sticking his hands in the pockets of his new pants and scanning the room whenever there was a gap in the conversation.

"You wanna get out of here?" Lisa asked, because it was the right thing to do, even though she could have happily stayed for another drink.

~~

So she had this fantasy.

She'd make a reservation at the most expensive restaurant in the city and tell Dean to meet her there. She'd be fashionably late of course, so Dean would have to wait for her, nervous and uncomfortable, in soft, rich clothes she'd picked out for him.

When she arrived he'd tell her she looked beautiful and she'd tell him the same, and he'd blush and be unable to argue since their waiter would be right there. She'd have to order for both of them, since Dean wouldn't recognize half the items on the menu. He'd use the wrong cutlery and would shovel the food onto his fork instead of spearing it elegantly. She'd pay, and then as they were leaving, they'd run into another couple, maybe a client of hers and her husband, and of course they'd love to have coffee together. 

They'd talk a little, of their investments and such, and when the topic came round to Dean's occupation, she'd say he was good with his hands and that would be that, their interest in him would vanish and they'd cough and change the subject.

She'd excuse herself to go to the restroom, and while she was fixing her make-up, Dean would burst in and force her up against the sink.

"Good with my hands?" he'd smirk, and then reach up under her dress. 

"More like fantastic," she'd reply, and then he'd really get to work, pulling down her panties, teasing and massaging, while she slid eagerly against him. His mouth would be at her neck and his other hand at her back, the one steady thing in an evening of pretense. 

~~

It wouldn't be them though.

Dean on his best day could charm almost anyone, God, she knew that first hand. He might have weird, almost scary, gaps in his knowledge, but he'd never hurt her by exposing her own weaknesses in public.

He hadn't said anything directly, but she knew he was curious about the details of her life. She'd find him flicking through her magazines and trying to figure out the purpose of everything on her dresser. He hadn't had much to bring into the house, most of what he had had been weapons, and half of the rest had been Sam's.

Every holiday Lisa made sure to buy him something he could keep, something that would last for as long as he stayed with them.

He was more interested in the piles of books he was storing in the garage that he thought she hadn't discovered. She didn't dare open them, just casually mentioned that if she could find them, so could Ben.

~~

She tried to keep her eyes on his arms at least, but the belt made it very hard to concentrate on anything above crotch level. Dean must have been switching tools more often than was necessary, but she wasn't complaining.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.

"I'm sorry, it's just..." She thought she might have blushed for the first time in years.

He looked her up and down and grinned. "I get it, Lise. Come on, you teach yoga." 

"I think I have time for another student, if you're interested."

She kissed him, arms around his neck, and then he bent his knees and picked her up.

"Don't even think about wearing those boots inside," she said when they reached the door, and she laughed as he petulantly put her down and took them off.

"Think I've done enough heavy lifting anyway," he said, over-exaggerating his stretch to make sure she knew he didn't mean it. 

~~

Those were some of the better days.

She'd have to remember them when things got tough.

~~


End file.
